The North-South Divide: Is it still a relevant conversation?
Image Credit: Adam Smith Institute
If you were to ask a group of people where the North-South divide lies, it is likely that you would get a range of answers. As someone who is from Liverpool, I would consider the North to be roughly anywhere north of Chester and the South to be south of Coventry. Of course, there is no official physical border that divides the country, yet this debate still continues to divide us. The North-South divide is not only geographical, but political, cultural, and deeply emotional. The line is not solely about latitude: it’s about money, power, accent. It’s about whose culture is considered default and whose is marked as other.
The political roots of this divide, such as the lasting impact of Thatcherism on former industrial regions, are impossible to ignore. Deindustrialisation replaced Northern communities that had been built around collective labour with unemployment, precarity, and long-term underinvestment. In comparison, the South (particularly London) emerged as the centre of finance, culture, and opportunity. Studies by the Equality Trust have shown the significant economic inequalities between the North and the South in terms of household wealth. These economic realities hardened into stereotypes: the North as deprived but proud, the South as wealthy but detached. From a Scouse perspective, I know that my city has undergone a decades-long smear campaign that exposed how readily the North could be dehumanised by Southern institutions. I find it interesting that not a lot of people outside of Liverpool understand what is meant by “Scouse not English”. The conversation concerning the divide is also greatly exclusionary. What about the Midlands? They are suspended awkwardly in the middle, being claimed or disowned depending on convenience and rarely allowed their own identity. What about the rest of the UK? Perhaps Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland don’t even consider the English North-South divide, instead feeling that they are the communities that have been consistently othered throughout the UK’s geopolitical history. What do international students think about the matter? Maybe it depends on their cultural awareness of the UK in its entirety, which is an extremely unfair expectation. From these perspectives, the North-South divide seems to be something that keeps England’s population at odds with each other.
At university, students from all over the UK are thrown together in seminars, societies, and sticky-floored clubs, and it’s here that these differences between the North and the South (at least in my opinion) really shine through. As a Northerner, I thought that coming to university in the North would mean that I would be surrounded by a majority of Northerners. However it was clear from the moment I moved into my first year halls, that I was ironically the minority. Past research by the Children’s Commissioner for England has shown that students from London and the South East are more than 50% more likely to attend top-ranked universities than the rest of the UK. Despite efforts to reduce the gap from schemes such as the Sutton Trust, I was still surprised to be surrounded by so many Southerners. Some universities such as the University of York have even set up Northern societies as a way of connecting students and building community.
When I moved to Leeds, my Dad warned me about not falling into the Scouse exceptionalist stereotype (i.e., thinking that Liverpool is the best place in the world). While my friends may disagree with me, I really did try to not rave on about my home city. However, when faced with a sea of Southerners, I found it easiest to cling to my Scouseness like a life-jacket. In my head, no one could make me feel singled out or make fun of my Northerness if I was (perhaps rather overly) proud. I found myself slipping into a stronger accent, using slang I wouldn’t normally, and telling anyone who would listen how much I love Lark Lane. I’ll always remember something that was said to me growing up: “You don’t need to get rid of your accent to get your point across.” Ironically, the person who said this didn’t realise I didn’t have a particularly strong accent to begin with, but the sentiment has stuck with me. I think this strategy has mainly worked out for me. I have been lucky enough to experience very little direct insult for my Northernness. However, that’s not to say it doesn’t happen. Offhanded comments, mocking accents, and a general ignorance of the realities of the divide are common across the country. My home friends who attend university in the South have even shared instances of people being openly hateful towards the North.
Class complicates the conversation. The North-South divide is often spoken about as if everyone in the North is working class and everyone in the South is wealthy, which is obviously untrue. I am middle-class and Northern, which I feel places me at an interesting intersection. On one hand, I have cultural familiarity with Northern pride and resentment. On the other hand, I have never experienced the same material disadvantages as those with a working-class background, regardless of where in the country they are from. At the same time, the prejudice still remains and my Northernness perhaps still marks me as less than my Southern economic equals. Additionally, some Southerners experience erasure of their working class heritage as “poshness” is often coded Southern. Personally, I think it’s important to be proud of being Northern, but also to acknowledge my social background and never pretend to be something I am not.
Ultimately, the North-South divide isn’t wholly about geography, but instead about community and otherness. At university, we are being taught to think critically, and so we should be questioning these divisions rather than reproducing them. Perhaps the divide isn’t somewhere circling Birmingham, but embedded much closer to home in our institutions, our assumptions, and the way we choose to speak about each other.
Words by Anya Fernihough